Ends and Greens

The Settlement of Wheathampstead & Harpenden, Vol 1

adapted by Rosemary Ross

There are 19 Ends and 18 Greens in the area of the joint parishes of Harpenden and Wheathampstead. Some, like Westend or Mackerye End, are still much as they must have been for hundreds of years. Others, like Hatching Green and Kinsbourne Green, have been built over and around, but even here the old greens survive. All over the two parishes there are names which go back to the earliest continuous human settlements in the forest and there are surviving greens which may have been the first pieces of ground cleared of trees. The built-up character of much of modern Harpenden conceals the fact that this part of the parish was an area of hamlets and single farmsteads until the first evidence of Harpenden as a community in the late 12th century. Even the area around St Nicholas Church may have been no more than another Green within the woodland, since there is no mention of Harpenden in Domesday Book.

Ends & Greens in Harpenden and Wheathampstead, with boundaries as in 1973

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